Adventure 2016

Chapter 9: Looking for the King.

It was dark inside. Not totally dark; there was a green glow that their eyes adjusted to. They were in a large empty room, like a school hall but with a low ceiling. It was not as decrepit as the outside suggested. They edged forward.

The green glow was coming from a fire exit sign at the back of the room. It was above an open doorway.

"Nothing in here," Jenny whispered. "Let's go through that door."

No sign of notail. No sign of anyone. The doorway led to a set of metal stairs that went upwards.

"You really think the king lives in a place like this?" James whispered, peering up the staircase. It was dark at the top, in fact he couldn't even see the top.

"We don't even know what he is," Jenny whispered back.

She began to slowly climb the stairs, placing each foot gently on the next step and testing it, then putting her weight on it. James followed, just as cautiously. No sense in falling through a broken staircase before dinner. Twenty-four slow, careful steps later and they were at the top.

As dark as it was, it was clear that this floor was falling apart. Their eyes adjusted, and there was enough of the green from below to pick out some features. The wall ahead had big holes in the plaster and the door had been boarded up with wood from an old pallet. James went to the door, but Jenny pulled his sleeve.

"I think we can see through here," she whispered. "There's a hole, and I think I can see some light coming through."

Sure enough, to the side of the door, about a foot above the floor was a large rent in the plaster. A fire extinguisher lay under it, pulled from its brackets. They knelt down and peered through.

One the other side was a smaller room. It had a window with ragged curtains through which a weak light was seeping. Enough light to give them a clear view of a white cat. A white cat with a gleaming collar. The Empress of the Six Dials.

She was sitting on an old desk or table near the window, looking out, silently. There was a fluttering behind her and she turned toward it. James forced his head against the damp plaster, but couldn't see who she was looking at.

"Ahh, Empress, my dear," said a high, almost jolly-sounding male voice. "So good of you to visit. I have some news for you."

"Tell me quick so I can get out of this filth," the Empress said. "And next time I'll choose the meeting place."

"As you wish. But you'll like this. Your cousin, Claudia, is dead. Or will be soon. A gang of my birds from the Level attacked her--"

"Bah!" the Empress said. "Claudia can swat Level pigeons like flies!"

"Yes, but with the birds I sent two grey assassins. And they report that a poison dart found its mark. That cat is as good as dead."

"Then where's the body?" the Empress asked. "I'll not be satisfied with your word alone. Without a body our deal won't hold."

"Did you not hear me, pussycat?" the voice lost its jolliness. "I said a poison dart from a grey assassin. The cat is dead, and that is the end of it!"

"If I find out that you are wrong," the Empress said calmly. "I'll take my claws to your soft, fat feathers."

"You think me a fool? Lights!"

There was a flicker from the ceiling, and a solitary, dim bulb lit the room with a putrid yellow light. It was hardly enough light to reach the floor, but it was enough to serve its purpose. Around the edge of the room were pigeon soldiers, hundreds of them, armed with their pigeon weapons.

The Empress simply yawned. "I could smell your bodyguards from the dials," she said. "Is there anything else you want to say to me?"

"On Saturday, the plan is set. You will play your part, and I mine. When the sun goes down the pier with be ablaze. I'll hold the sky, you hold the beach and Archduke Crackwing will be trapped. If we're lucky his idiot nephew will be with him."

"Yes, yes, your plan," the Empress didn't sound impressed. "I'll be there, you can be sure of that."

Then things happened. Lot's of things. James thought the first thing was the worst. But he was wrong. The first thing was caused by James' mum, although she didn't know it. It was a chime sound that came from James' pocket. It was muffled by his trousers, and he was on the other side of a wall, but effect was instant. The Empress and every one of the birds in the dimly lit room turned toward the hole that James and Jenny were peering through.

James froze. He wanted to duck out of the way and run off down the stairs. When he tried he couldn't even turn his head away, let alone move his legs.

And then the rest of the things happened.

A tiny black blur shot past James' ear with a sound like a mosquito. The Empress ducked. He felt something push against his cheek and out of the corner of his eye a grey rat without a tail came into view. James registered that it was Notail's foot on his cheek. The squirrel pushed off and dived through the hole, drawing another arrow into its bow. This one was loosed in the other direction, toward the owner of the voice that James could not see. As the arrow left the bow, Notail looked back over its shoulder at James and gave him a wink. Another arrow already in its tiny hand being notched onto the bowstring.

The Empress's duck became a leap -- not toward them, but the window and escape. Every single pigeon took flight and the room turned into dust and feathers and squawks and chaos. James felt a tug at his sleeve. Jenny was already up, pulling him toward the stairs.

"Let's get out of here!" she said urgently.

James turned his head away from the affray, and as he did saw Notail take a hard hit from a pigeon with a staff. The squirrel was knocked back to the floor near the hole in the wall. James couldn't leave, he had to help their guide. A hundred pigeons against one squirrel with no tail hardly seemed fair.

He looked around for something to help him knock down the door. The fire extinguisher was right by him. It was big and heavy and metal and... a fire extinguisher!

He dragged it upright, held the nozzle through the hole in the wall and squeezed the lever on top. Nothing happened. He felt around the handle for a safety pin, found a plastic tab and yanked it out. Then he squeezed again. White gas blasted from the nozzle and into the other room. He held the handle tight and directed the nozzle left and right and up and down.

The extinguisher made a terrible roar. Something scratched as his hand, but he ignored it. Then, still holding the lever hard with one hand, he reached his other hand in through the hole and felt blindly around on the floor. It was hopeless, but he felt it was the right thing to do.

Twice his hand was pecked, but he kept it out there, sweeping the floor. Then something was in his hand, something warm and soft. And with no tail. He pulled his hand out and turned away, Notail in clutched to his stomach.

Jenny was still there, at the top of the stairs watching the rescue. They ran, almost falling, down the stairs and out through the basement. They kept running out of the square, past the Clock Tower. They didn't look back and they didn't stop until they were almost at Preston Circus. There they huddled into a bus stop.

James showed Jenny what he was holding. Notail was lying still in his hand. Then the squirrel turned its head and looked at James and gave him a wink.